Spring Break

The girls & I traveled to Illinois for spring break to meet my new nephew Jackson Monroe. We left on Friday March 13th and spent the night with my aunt in Nashville, TN. The girls had a blast playing with Aunt Barbara's jewelry.

Then we drove to Illinois on Saturday. Lauren & Catherine were so excited to meet "baby Jackson." They couldn't wait to hold him!

My birthday was on Sunday the 15th and the girls helped Sugie make brownies for my birthday treat.

We had such a great week with Katie & Bob and Sugie & Pops, and I was so glad that we got to stay with Aunt Barbara on both ends of the trip. It was so nice to break up the drive since I was driving by myself.

OH and one other funny story: Katie's cats are not that fond of my wild girls and generally try to hide. However, Ellie will "judo-chop" Lauren when Lauren gets in her personal space - it's hilarious!

Snow Day!

We had almost 4 inches of snow in AUBURN today! The girls had such a great time playing in the snow.

Ken, Lauren & Catherine


Lynne, Lauren & Catherine

Ken walked around campus and took some snow shots.

The snowman with the Aubie tail for a tie...a mowhawk...and smoking a cigar....riding in a truck.

January Randomness

Where's Waldo? Catherine had so many friends in the bed last night it was hard to find her!

Lauren has been wearing eye makeup when playing dress up lately, but I think we need to work on her application skills...

We had "Game Night" recently and the girls had a blast playing Hungry Hungry Hippo!

Catherine got really quiet one day and when I went to investigate she had put herself down for a nap - 2nd children have to do everything for themselves, ha ha!

Lauren's 2nd tooth

My neighbor and I have a carpool to take our two kids to Kindergarten. (They ride the bus home together in the afternoons.) Elizabeth called me on Tuesday mid-morning to let me know that Lauren had left her lunchbox in the van. Not a problem...one of my New Year's resolutions was to have everything ready each night, so Catherine and I were ready for preschool early, and we were able to pick up the lunchbox and drop it off at the Kindergarten before Catherine had to be at preschool.

So...Lauren lost her 2nd tooth on Tuesday at school. Mrs. Mims put the tooth in a baggie and Lauren put it in her lunchbox. Then, she proceeded to leave her lunchbox on the bus when she got home on Tuesday afternoon. She & her friend are the last two kids off the bus each day...how do you lose your lunchbox on an empty bus?

It was not a good lunch box day.

Wednesday was a great day! Lauren got her lunchbox back from the bus driver, tooth intact! (And leftover peanut butter sandwich, etc. - Ewww.) She put her tooth in the special pillow for the tooth fairy and got her gold coin this morning.

(notice the two new teeth coming in BEHIND the other teeth!)

She took her lunch to school today and made it home with the lunchbox. Success!

Girls & Boys

My friend Jana and I like to talk about how her son and my girls are different. Case in point: Clem likes to play with cars. He gets on the floor, pushes them around, studies how they work, makes car noises, etc. Catherine...reads to her cars.


And now we have to show the cars the picture:



Hope they liked the story!

Lost Tooth!

Lauren lost her first tooth overnight (she came into my room about 5:30 this morning to show me.) Her permanent tooth was already coming in behind the loose tooth, so you can see it in the pictures. She was so excited! She'll put her tooth under her pillow tonight for the Tooth Fairy, so I suspect I'll get another early visit tomorrow showing me what the TF brought! :)

Happy Birthday, Lauren!

Lauren is 6 years old today! She had a great day with pancakes for breakfast, a party at Frog Legs and Moe's for dinner. :) She has loose teeth, increasing negotiating skills, a tendancy toward the dramatic and a need to boss her sister. She's also a sweet, loving and wonderful part of our family! Happy birthday sweet girl!

Lauren - 6 years - November '08

Lauren - 6 months - May '03

Happy Birthday Catherine!

Catherine is 3 years old today! It doesn't seem possible that it has been three years since she was born. She had a little party with her friend Clem yesterday, and she's having a party with her preschool classmates tomorrow at school. She is such a funny, happy little girl and I'm so thankful that she is a part of our life.

Sign of the times...

Lauren came home from school today and said, "We had a new drill! It wasn't a fire drill or a tornado drill. We learned what to do if a bad person comes to the school." She then proceeded to tell me the password that the principal would use to announce the presence of a "bad person," and where their safe zones are. Scary, but necessary.

Soccer Game

Lauren is playing soccer again this fall. Today was the best game she's had yet. She scored three goals, which was her favorite part. MY favorite part was her hustle and enthusiasm the whole game. Most games she doesn't want to play and asks the coach for breaks. Today she wanted to stay in the game the whole time. She did a great job running to the ball and she had some good assists and good blocks. It was so much fun to watch her!

Important Safety Information

Ok...so I'm pitifully behind on updating my blog and I have a lot of fun pictures to share. BUT, I had to share this story.

I picked Catherine up at preschool yesterday and her teacher said they had been learning about dialing 911 in an emergency. She had colored a cute picture of a phone and the teachers had her put one fingerprint on the 9 and two fingerprints on the 1. So, as we're driving home I asked Catherine: "What do you do in an emergency?" Catherine said, "You run to the potty, pull down your pants and go pee-pee!" You know...at almost 3 years old, that's just as important as 911...!

Georgia Aquarium

We had planned to go to Panama City for the Labor Day weekend, but we decided not to travel south after watching the forcasts for Gustav. So, we headed to Atlanta yesterday to visit the Georgia Aquarium. As we were driving through downtown Atlanta to the Aquarium, we realized that some type of Star Wars/Star Trek convention was going on. (I looked it up later and it was a Dragon-Con Convention??!) Anyway, we saw several interesting costumes...! When we got to the Aquarium, we saw that ESPN College Game Day was set up in Centennial Park. Ken had fun wandering around with all the Alabama and Clemson fans while the girls played on the playground. We finally got into the Aquarium and it was awesome! We liked it so much that we decided to upgrade our tickets to a yearly membership. We plan to head back very soon.

Catherine's First Day of Preschool!

Today was Catherine's first day at Parkway Preschool! She was so excited - she's been ready to go to school since Lauren went on the 11th. (Actually, she probably wanted to go ahead and start last year! ) Her teachers are Ms. Kim and Ms. Kandy....or as Catherine says with her southern accent, Miss Kam and Miss Ka-andy. :)

Catherine's best bud Clem also started school today - he was ready to go too!!

Jana & I are celebrating our first day without any children by going to lunch later. It will be so strange to have a conversation over lunch without saying "Stop throwing your food!" "Don't hit your sister!" "EAT!" Hopefully I won't try to cut Jana's chicken for her...

First Day of School!

Today was Lauren's first day of Kindergarten. She was so excited!



We took a couple of pictures outside of the school and then she was ready to go to her pod. She told me, "I remember how to get to the Yellow Pod - you don't need to help me."

Meanwhile, Catherine and Clem got to play together this morning. They enjoyed having a snack break while playing outside: